Tempted by the Soldier by Nicolette Day

Tempted By The Soldier

by Nicolette Day
Rating: 3 of 5 stars

My review:
I was so excited to read this one, once I found out it was connected to No Strings Attached (this is Jace's brother's story). I loved No Strings Attached. I've re-read it multiple times. Although I didn't remember too much of Nate's personality, I found this book true to what I do remember. He's a closed down person with a lot of emotional pain. He's got the emotional intelligence to watch out for his brother, but he really doesn't connect or share himself with anyone.

Lilly was almost the same way. It seemed that this book was maybe a year plus after the first story and as much as Lilly was really close to Hayden at one time, they don't feel all that close in this book. Lilly has her own share of pain and heartache and problems connecting with people. She and Nate had a single night way back when, but it ended badly and they haven't interacted since then. Now, they're on the way to Hayden and Jace's wedding, with weather issues and a long road trip.

The sexual tension between these two was pretty awesome. I loved the banter and teasing at the beginning of the story. Neither one is going to do anything, except push the other's buttons a bit. They both had a decent give and take, they poked at each other in a lighthearted, sexy way, and I liked how their story was progressing.

Nate and Lilly each had some emotional issues that started getting deeper as the story went on. By the midpoint, I was feeling rather depressed for the characters. These issues were big. Lilly and Nate are just such broken, disconnected people. Lilly has abandonment and trust issues that need to be worked out. Nate has the somewhat normal, romance novel guy issues of running from emotional entanglements, with the extra PTSD of war-zone proportions. They have some hot tension and closeness when they're stuck in a car together, but when night fell and they stopped driving, Lilly seemed to hit rock bottom... and then they had sex. I felt really let down that this was the point they had sex. They've been bantering and teasing all day and after all kinds of rejection from Nate, Lilly is dealing with her pain when Nate decides he's had enough of restraining himself. Eventually Lilly got into the encounter too, but I felt like Nate had “horny caveman” written all over him. I don't think he commented on her tears or anything, just barges in and starts on the foreplay.

As the story progressed, I liked Nate less and less. He got way alpha. He turned possessive, jealous, and demanding. And it felt like Lilly's personality shrunk in proportion to Nate's ballooning ego. She sort of went along with whatever he wanted and stopped introspecting about how to deal with her own insecurities. I saw her having a magical attraction to Nate, but I didn't really see Nate being the type of person that she'd want to be with. He didn't seem to add anything positive to her life.

By the end of the book, Nate and Lilly had worked out their relationship issues. Nate especially grew up enough emotionally to admit that he was in love and didn't want to keep running from connections. But I felt the rest of their personal issues were just dropped. They stopped introspecting about their very real personal issues and didn't seem to spend any time figuring out how this relationship would work. It just all magically disappeared for the sake of a happily ever after.

The story had a nice setting, good writing, and detailed characters, but I didn't think these two actually dealt with their issues or liked each other beyond their soul mate status. I was depressed through the second half of the book, but I was invested enough in the characters to finish and feel nice that they were happy at the end. I wish they had more time and space to grow as people. All in all, the book took about three hours to read and was worth it for the sexy tension, but without enough time spent on resolving the heavy emotions I couldn't commit myself to their happily ever after. I'll keep looking for more by this author, but this one isn't my favorite.

I received a complementary ARC of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.


**This review is archived on my blog: The Theory Of Lieto Fine

Angeli by Jody Wallace

Angeli
by Jody Wallace
Rating: 3 of 5 stars

My Review:
Another one of those really hard book for me to rate. On the one hand, I really liked the writing, the adventure was fun and original, the sexual tension was good but realistic. Overall I was pleased with the pacing. But then there were lots of places where I had to put aside my questions and hope for answers at the end. Those answers never came. I don't actually know if this is just the first book in a series, so maybe the answers come later. But by the end of the book, I felt like the characters were just plugging along with a veil thrown over their heads, so they never saw beyond their own feet.

Adelita was tough and fatalistic. She got things done and had a good time doing them. I loved how she was drawn. She felt very real and she was able to integrate all parts of the situation pretty well. I liked how she could be emotionally vulnerable but also take charge and intelligent. She seemed to always have a plan and know what needed to be done without being clued in to all the details.

Gregori is an enhanced alien/humanoid. He was honorable, a little blundery, and ready to take on the world. He felt a little like the Wolverine, but with wings. The pain of his enhancements is sort of glossed over in a way that he just shrugs and says that's how things are. He seems like he's not that good around people and he was ok with Adelita taking charge when she felt like it. Not that he was all beta and bendable. He could be rather full of himself sometimes and an authoritarian know-it-all, but he was still flawed and Adelita was just as likely to be the one in charge as he was.


It felt like Adelita and Gregori were pretty perfectly matched to each other. They were able to support each other and care for each other in such unerringly precise ways. They fit together like puzzle pieces and their romance and sexual tension was well done without being over powering.

If this were a book written only for the romance, I'd give it four stars for the characters' interactions together. It had a happy ending for the romance portion of the story. But the romance and emotional tension was only about a third of the book. The rest was focused on the adventure and in those terms, I felt like I was just left hanging. Even Gregori and Adelita's part in the adventure seemed to be unclearly resolved at the end, so I was left frustrated and unfulfilled. Perhaps if I see a second book in the series, more of my questions will be answered and I won't feel so slighted, but right now I feel like I put all kinds of time into confusing myself. I did like the writing, so I still have plans to read more by this author.

#1 Comfort Food

There's always things like stew or chili or chicken noodle soup as comfort food, but growing up my favorite was always Cream Turkey. Not it's real name, not even a real, written down recipe. But it was always my favorite. A creamy sauce, lots of turkey, all poured over buttered bread. And if mom and dad were feeling especially like messing up the comfort food, add peas.

Now that I'm the grown up, I only remember to make this every now and then, but it's always a hit with the boys. Short Stuff eats an adult-sized serving and the Small Person is still on a half serving, but there's never any complaining. Mr. G. prefers it with corn and peas, so he gets a little side dish to pour on top.

We only used to have this near Thanksgiving when there would be fresh turkey, but now that Costco sells pre-cooked turkey breasts, we can have it anytime. A batch of this uses half a Costco turkey breast and will make at least two meals for the four of us.

Cream Turkey

1 stick butter
2/3 cup flour
2 cups water w/Better Than Bullion
4 cups milk
half a Costco pre-cooked turkey breast, sliced into 1/2 inch cubes
sliced bread
butter for the bread
frozen peas and corn (if desired)

Melt the butter in a medium pot. Add the flour. Stir until it's made a nice solid paste with the butter. Keep stirring and cooking for about a minute. Add the chicken stock (water and Better Than Bullion) and milk to the pot all at once. Stir constantly (in a figure eight shape) while cooking on medium to medium high heat. Keep cooking and stirring until the sauce starts to thicken. It should start to look like white gravy. (Don't get impatient. Give it time - probably about 5-10 minutes.) When it's close to gravy thickness, add the turkey (and the corn and peas if that's in your plan) and keep it on the heat (and stirring!) until the turkey is heated though - another 5 minutes maybe.

If you have a second person, you can toast and butter the bread while you're cooking the sauce, but do not skimp on the stirring. If you have to, just wait until it's all done cooking and off the heat, then take care of the bread. Once the bread is toasted and buttered, lay it flat on a plate and ladle out a scoop or so of the sauce and turkey onto each slice of bread. Sometimes a little salt and pepper on top can be extra nice but not necessary. Use a fork and knife to cut into bite-sized pieces so you can soak up plenty of sauce on each piece of bread.

The Horizon by Charlotte Stein

The Horizon
by Charlotte Stein
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
This was one of those really fun, sexy books. Charlotte Stein by herself is always a winner in my opinion, but Charlotte Stein does space cowboy is practically the cutest thing ever – in a filthy, sex-obsessed way of course. It's got cowboy slang with just a hint of british grammar, so it took some thinking on my part to understand the sentences, but those are some of the funnest books for me to read.

Imagine some alien species, somewhere between Cybermen from Doctor Who and Vidiians from Star Trek Voyager (the ones with the Phage), chasing and capturing two humanoid space pirates to do whatever sick, twisted things they do. Except for REASONS, the space pirates get away after being shot up with some neural toxin drug. What happens next is fun and crazy and erotic. And for as much as there is a rollicking adventure happening in the background, this story is about two people finding out they belong together.

Both characters are pretty tough and unemotional, so every little step they take towards each other feels so poignant, like their crossing miles just to say “I like you”. They fight all the time and it's all so raw and perfect. They're both sort-of awkward but comfortable in their skin and comfortable with exactly how the other is. They're not out to change each other and their fighting is always related to caring and tough-guy posturing. I loved watching them finally figure out their feelings and see a little bit of their sweet, soft underbellies.

This book is written in third person, so we get a nice mix of each of their feelings. This is not a really long book – somewhere around 100 pages. So it goes pretty quickly and it's the perfect therapy for the end of a busy day. It goes into my “read again whenever I need a pick me up” pile.

Romancing The Duke by Tessa Dare

Romancing The Duke
by Tessa Dare
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
Tessa Dare books are always on my must read list. I think you pretty much can't go wrong with any of them. No matter if it's my favorite one or not, I never pick one up and then wonder if it's the best choice for right now. Within 10 pages, I'm completely hooked. This one was no different. Sadly, I didn't have four hours to read in one day, but the book was in my hand every chance I got.

Izzy is her own personal fairy tale. Pretty much nothing goes how she'd like but everything has some thread of familiarity to it. I found her to be very amusing and relatable. She took all the bad and transformed it into something good. She was the ultimate lemons-to-lemonade woman. She takes whatever she can get, grabs whatever loveliness she can, and allows herself to be whoever she needs to be. That sounds confusing, but really it was just that she was fine acting in certain ways to keep up the impressions of who she was. In some books, that might be annoying (and it was to Ransom for a while), but she was strong enough to own who she was but still play a role when she felt like it. She wanted to give everyone else the fairy tale because life can be magical.

Ransom is scarred and cynical, but he also wasn't one to deny his feelings. He's the reformed bad-boy that everyone would like. He's got brothel receipts a mile long, but hasn't been with anyone since his accident. Izzy brings him back to the land of the living, but really she taught him how to believe again. It wasn't her dragging him along, but instead she showed Ransom the magic of friendships and life and fighting for what you want.

Tessa Dare has been writing Spindle Cove novels for so long that it was hard to remember no one in this book came from that world. This book had it's own complete cast of secondary characters. I didn't necessarily like all of them. Some of them were rather self-absorbed and inconsiderate. They weren't bad, but they also didn't make me long to see their own happily-ever-after. Bad guys are given almost no page-time in this book. The characters take their time to work out what they want and how they'll get there and it doesn't have much to do with the villains, even though there is a mystery with dishonest characters.

When you need a book to carry you away into a different world, this is the book for you. Like watching a engaging movie, this book made me happy. I liked reading it and I reveled in watching Izzy and Ransom's story unfold.

Green Veggie Cheesy Pasta

Here's the thing: if you've seen my recipes for a while, I'm always trying to get more green (and other colored) veggies into my children. They've generally accepted the idea of green, smooth sauces and soups as long as nothing is obviously leafy. I count that as a win, but sometimes you just have to push the boundaries a bit.

Enter the cauliflower. It's white! How can the kids object?! But my last couple efforts were a total failure. "There's something chunky in here." "Did you put cauliflower in here?" "I don't like this." and so on forever and ever amen. They managed cauliflower pizza crust ok because it's really cheesy but nothing with obvious veggie-ness.

Onto the experiment. Rice the cauliflower? check. Grind up spinach and onions? check. The boys saw me make the cauliflower. But I'm getting smarter to their ways. When we sat down to eat, before they even took a bite, they asked "does this have cauliflower in it?". Evasion... well, there's a lot of parmesan cheese. *Take bite* "I think I felt something chunky in here." It's probably just the parmesan cheese. A little more evasion and they both ate their whole bowl. Success. Hubby said it tastes a lot like a pizza.

Green Veggie Cheesy Pasta

1 head of cauliflower
6 oz spinach
1/2 an onion
1-1/2 tsp minced garlic
2 Tbls butter
1 Tbls lemon juice
2-1/2 cups water
1 Tbls Better Than Bullion
a bunch of fresh mint leaves
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar jack or something fun)
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup whipping cream
16 oz pasta (cooked according to package directions)

Start by chopping up the cauliflower and sending it through the food processor/Vitamix until it's the size of rice or smaller (for the Vitamix, I process about 1/3 at a time). Put all processed cauliflower in a bowl and microwave, covered, for about 8 minutes.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Chop up the onion and sauté with the spinach and garlic in the melted butter. Cook until the onion is translucent and the spinach is all wilty.

Put the water and Better Than Bullion into the Vitamix, then add the onion and spinach mixture. Process on high for 15-30 seconds, until it's all smooth. Pour back into the saucepan. Chop up the mint leaves (I ended up with about 1/2 a cup of chopped mint). Add the lemon juice and mint to the saucepan along with the riced cauliflower. Cook on medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add all of the cheeses and stir constantly until they're well melted. After the sauce is smooth again (except for the cauliflower of course), add the whipping cream and keep stirring until everything is warmed through and the same shade of green.

Pour over your prepared pasta (all together, or in individual bowls). Mix it up before you hand it out to the kiddies. Remind yourself to say "it's just parmesan cheese". Sit down and enjoy.

Man Hungry by Sabrina York

Man Hungry
by Sabrina York
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
This one was a lot shorter than I expected. It was pretty much three or four scenes. Jessica is set up by her friend on a blind date with the friend's cousin. The date has both of them pretending they got stood up and they have an emotionally charged one night stand.

I enjoyed the writing and it was a cute, short, sexy story. Some of the language made me laugh. This author seems to like some very specific, out of the ordinary romance novel words; like drool and ort (which I had to look up).

The one thing that did make me uncomfortable was the sense of slut shaming. For a rather erotic, sex filled story, you don't expect the use of the word slut in a somewhat derogatory tone. It makes me feel that Jessica didn't really own her sexuality when deciding to be with Justin. It wasn't really a pervasive attitude. It was more of a “I'm a teacher, so if I have a one night stand that makes me a slut”. Sort-of the expectation people have of her more so than whether what she did was right or wrong, but it still made me cringe that the solution was “since you don't normally do this, it makes you not a slut”.


So, overall an enjoyable, engaging read. Fun situations with humorous characters that have a good time together. But a little bit of female disempowerment thrown in to make me feel cheated out of a great resolution. I will keep buying more books by this author. It looks like I have a bit of a backlist to check out. I hope the other books are able to be sex positive, erotic stories instead of throwing in a bit of shaming towards the heroine's sexuality.